Weekend riff: Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (intro riff)

Slash's arpeggiated guitar riff

In the first of TG's new online series of video lessons you can learn Slash's twisty little guitar riff from GnR's planet-busting hit, Sweet Child O' Mine.

Most of this riff is based on a two-bar pattern that repeats starting on one of three different notes. Learn the basic two-bar pattern, keep track of those starting notes, and you've got most of the riff covered. There are just two other bars of music to learn

Picking-wise, it makes sense to use standard 'down-up' style alternate picking. However, you may prefer to switch to upstrokes on the first string notes, with downstrokes in between. This ensures you always pick in the direction of the next note. It also keeps pick hand movements as short and efficient as possible.

Finally, on the original recording Slash tuned his guitar down a semitone to Eb standard tuning (Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb), but we've stayed in standard E tuning (EADGBE) for convenience.